


Home

by abovethesmokestacks



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky is a little loopy, F/M, Fluff, Sam is a Little Shit, The Masked Writer submission, Tony is being Tony, brought to you by my Pinterest-fuelled obsession with tiny houses, crossposted from tumblr, so much motherfluffing fluff, with a cameo performance from the app I use when I run, with fixed typos and a few edited facts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 12:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18800236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abovethesmokestacks/pseuds/abovethesmokestacks
Summary: Saturdays are not for housing superheroes, and you don’t care if one of them is your army buddy and the other a cyborg who, okay, is kinda cute when he’s not clutching his twitching arm like it’s his goddamn teddybear. So of course, your tiny house becomes a tiny superhero central.





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> This wss my submission for The Masked Writer over on tumblr. If you guys haven't heard of it, then I suggest you go check it out at @themaskedwriter. Amazing submissions where the aim is to guess the "masked wroter" simply from the fic they have submitted to the account.

Generally, when the phone rings in the middle of the night, it's never good news. It's death and mayhem and all manners of misdeeds just waiting to ruin your night, your morning and possibly the entire week that follows. Your solution had been to move around a lot. If you never stay long enough in one place, then death and mayhem and all those misdeeds never get a chance to catch up with you. Unless-

 

“Someone better be dying,” you grunt when you answer, not bothering with greetings or pleasantries. Anyone calling at, _fuck_ , 3.22 am can frankly go fornicate themselves.

 

_“I need your coordinates.”_

 

“No.”

 

_“Come on, I promise, it's just for the night.”_

 

“Last time you said that, Wilson, you stayed for a week and Captain America bled all over my couch.”

 

At the other end of a very unstable line - is he fucking _flying and calling?_ \- Sam winces, because yeah, last time was a fucking rollercoaster of bad, and you ended up moving as soon as they were out the door and refusing to answer Sam's texts for two weeks just to be sure you could get some actual peace and quiet.

 

_“No one is bleeding. Much.”_

 

“Sam…”

 

_“I swear on my sainted nana's grave no one will be bleeding when we get there.”_

 

We? Jesus, did someone shoot Captain America again? You groan and roll over, pressing your face into the pillow.

 

_“It's just one night, I swear, we just need someplace to lay low before we can move on and haul ass back to base.”_

 

You hate Sam Wilson. You do, you'll put it in writing, you’ll write a goddamn op ed for the fucking New York Times listing all the reasons he is a terrible, terrible friend. All you wanted was a nice, quiet life, a little time to figure shit out after an honorable discharge from the Air Force, and then that idiot had to go and become a goddamn superhero with his goddamn wings and the goddamn Avengers as his goddamn squad. He owes you. He owes you so much and he’ll owe you even more- _Aw, fuck_.

 

“I'll give you twelve hours before I kick you out on your asses.”

 

_“You are the best, I've always said that, you know. The best. The goat-”_

 

“Please, never call me that again.”

 

_“Sourpuss.”_

 

“I'll bill you for anything you destroy,” you mutter, ending the call before Sam can say anything.

 

Rolling over on your back again, you breathe in deeply through your nose, staring at the light ceiling panelling. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. You text Sam your coordinates, telling him where to find the spare key because you draw the line at getting up to act as a welcome committee at this unholy hour.

 

_ >>Thanks, I owe you one. S _

 

_ >>U owe me several. Dont expect mints on the pillows and dont. fuckin. wake me. >:( _

 

_ >>You're adorable when you're cranky. We'll be there in about an hour. _

 

_ >>Fuk u _

 

Sam Wilson is a terrible, terrible friend, but at least he doesn’t actually wake you. He’s even up and looking far too chirpy when you crawl down from your sleep loft four hours later. Seriously, fuck Sam Wilson. Fuck Sam Wilson, and-

 

“I like your digs.” He hands you a cup of coffee and thankfully does not attempt a hug.

 

“Yeah, well, makes running away from unbidden house guests easy,” you grunt back, taking a sip of the glorious coffee.

 

Sam snorts, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “As if you could fit actual house guests in here. You’re lucky I spent half my childhood playing Tetris, or we would’ve had a problem getting in here.”

 

You glance over his shoulder, at the blanket-covered lump on your couch. Granted, the damn thing is from IKEA and required at least five curse words for every step in the assembly instructions, but the covering is a nice, pale shade of beige. “So who’s bleeding all over my place this time?”

 

“No one’s bleeding, I patched ‘im up just to preemptively get you off my ass.”

 

“So he was bleeding. That why you needed to crash?”

 

The way Sam hesitates makes it clear that blood loss is not the culprit here. You glare at him, and Sam Awful Terrible Friend Wilson rolls his eyes at you and walks past you and up to the couch, pulling down the covers.

 

“That’s…” You stare. There’s no better way to put it. “Sam, he’s- Why is his arm detached? Why is it wriggling?”

 

“We had a minor snafu. Barnes got dosed with something and it made his arm go a little haywire. It’s wired into his nervous system, so we had to do an emergency detachment until the thing is out of his system so he won’t helicopter himself into the sky or, you know, hurt anyone.”

 

“So why is it still twitching like a zombie limb? Please, don’t tell me he’s turning into a zombie. I can’t deal with a zombie apocalypse. I use Zombies! Run, but that’s the closest I ever want to come to the undead because even with that I fucking jump out of my skin when I start hearing heavy breathing in my ears and-”

 

“He’s not turning into a zombie, jeez!” Sam tosses the covers back in place, covering up Barnes and the twitchy arm. “It’s still receiving faint signals, so it’s acting like a nervous grandma. It’s completely harmless. Ha! I gotta remember that one when he wakes up.”

 

Jesus H. Christ. Where is a brick wall when you need one? “Sam!”

 

“Stark’s coming to pick us up in two hours, we’ll be out of your hair. We’ll even take the arm with us.”

 

You give an indignant sniff, heading back to the little ladder that leads up to your loft. “Fuck you, Wilson, I’m going back to bed and won’t come down until you and Terminator over there are out of my house.”

 

“Aw, come on! We’re delightful! Look, Barnes is even more delightful because he is asleep so you won’t even have to deal with him being Mr. Personality!”

 

You could tell him that from your perspective, Barnes is the preferable option in this situation because he is asleep and thus not bothering you. Instead, you opt for a succinct reply in the form of your middle finger and start to ascend the ladder, coffee mug tightly gripped in one hand. Saturdays are holy, okay? Saturdays are for waking up late, having coffee and then crawling back to your bed where the covers are still warm and just wait for the sun to rise high enough in the sky that you’re tempted to go outside. Saturdays are not for housing superheroes, and you don’t care if one of them is your army buddy and the other a cyborg who, okay, is kinda cute when he’s not clutching his _twitching arm_ like it’s his goddamn teddybear.

 

To be fair, Sam cuts out his little comedian act, and shuts up. There’s the odd shuffling from below, but nothing more, and you manage to doze off, wrapped like a burrito in your covers. It’s almost enough to make you forget that you have house guests.

 

Until Sam pinches your toe.

 

“Hey, sleepyhead,” he whispers, shaking your foot and you’re surprised you don’t kick him in the face.

 

“Piss off.”

 

“Delightful. We’re rolling out in five. I told Stark to bring you some decent breakfast as thanks.”

 

Well. Breakfast is an acceptable offering. There better be waffles, or you might need to kick Stark. With a grunt, you start extricating yourself from your covers, rooting around until you find a cardigan to wrap yourself in. Sam’s by the couch when you get down, ripping the covers from Sleeping Barnes and shaking his shoulder.

 

“Hey, Princess Elsa, our ride’s almost here.”

 

Barnes, who seems to appreciate sleeping as much as you do, tries to turn over and away from the rude awakening, but apparently manages to tickle himself on the detached arm, because the man gives a very high-pitched yelp before he very ungracefully tumbles off the couch and lands on his ass.

 

“Morning, Barnes.”

 

“Fuck you, Wilson,” Barnes grumbles with a glare that is… _impressive_.

 

“There’s coffee if you can inhale it in the next five minutes,” Sam tells him, shrugging of his umpteenth cuss-out in the last six hours.

 

“Bring… coffee…”

 

You’re not a rude host. Unwilling, but not rude. Coffee is a glorious drink, and you would never deny anyone the elixir of Life and General Functionality. You pour a cup for the man, bringing it to him, and Barnes stares at you, then at Sam, then takes a second to look around, mouth slowly falling open.

 

“Wilson, I think I’m-”

 

“What? You still not sobered up from the funky gas?”

 

“Either that, or I fell through the looking glass. Am I gonna grow and have my legs sprout through the window? Because that is not good,” Barnes says, gulping down his coffee and then peering up at you. “I’m not sure if you’re real, but either way, I have very impressive thighs. Hi, I’m Bucky”

 

He fires off a smile that is probably meant to look charming, but only succeeds in looking loopy. Sam, finally getting a fraction of the embarrassed he should be for dragging himself and this crazy ass man into your home, groans and facepalms. It is hilarious.

 

“Sam, I hate to say this, but I like this guy.”

 

“Sam, the hallucination is talking to you.”

 

“I’m not a hallucination,” you tell him, leaning down to pinch his left shoulder. “It’s a tiny house, made even tinier because yikes, you are built.”

 

Barnes, Bucky, yelps and his coffee sloshes dangerously against the edges of his mug.

 

“Well, that just seems very unfair to me. And Steve. Oh, jeez, and Bruce. Do you have anything against swole?”

 

“First of all, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, and second of all, if you’re Bucky Barnes then I’d very much like to know who the fuck taught you the word ‘swole’.”

 

Bucky Barnes, the most handsome centenarian in the entire world, is a delight, all smiles and jokes, and Sam is terrible for dragging him away. A godawful wind kicks up outside, heralding the arrival of Tony Stark, and you decide this is way too many superheroes. One is acceptable. Two is pushing it. Bucky, having realized he has in fact not shrunk, takes his time looking around while they head out and ends up clipping his head and oh, how people would blush if they heard the downright filth that Sergeant James B. Barnes lets out as he stumbles down the stairs.

 

Stark makes a joke about custody exchanges, and you tune out more than half because he brought breakfast, and _oh sweet Mary above,_ there are waffles. Sam and Bucky say their goodbyes, and you wave them off, too engrossed in the gorgeousness of waffles drenched in maple syrup and topped with fresh berries. For this, you could almost be okay with a superhero or two crashing for a night.

 

Not that you’ll ever be.

 

You have limits.

 

So of course, your tiny house becomes a tiny superhero central. First it’s Sam, again. Then it’s Stark. He almost gets his ass kicked out when he goes on and on about how you can live with the bare minimum of technology. You definitely kick him out when he wants to chip your house so people won’t have to call you at the asscrack of dawn to let you know, not ask, they are incoming. He does get back in your good graces by giving you a double serving of waffles.

 

Then, in quick succession, it’s Steve, Sam and Rhodey, Bucky, Barton and Bucky again. Most of them are okay house guests. Barton wins points by appearing genuinely interested in how you’ve set up your living space, quizzing you about layouts and building and the pros and cons of having your entire life confined to 240 square feet. He also loses those points when you wake up to find him sitting on the edge of the sleep loft, overlooking the house. Sam and Rhodey together is not as big of a disaster as one might think, mainly because Rhodey occasionally pulls rank on Sam and honestly? Thank god. Steve, bless him, tries to bend over backwards to not put you out, and his calls all include at least 75 permutations of an apology for calling.

 

Bucky.

 

He keeps his arm in place for the next couple of times. On the rare occasions when he’ll call in the middle of the day, he’ll always knock and wait until you open, he’ll insist on “earning his keep”, which is how you come to be the recipient of flowers, breakfast, and a very rare bathroom concerto that Bucky doesn’t know you overheard. The man has a very good singing voice, and it makes your heart skip a beat when he croons “It’s Been a Long, Long Time”. He’s the easiest to get along with, even one early morning when you wake up to his shuffling and cussing because your coffee maker refuses to cooperate. He doesn’t mind the quiet, doesn’t fret around like Stark (who insists that the laptop loaded with every streaming service imaginable and the usernames and passwords for each laid out on a sticky note that he left there is absolutely not a pity gift but a sound investment for both of your continued sanity).

 

“D’you like this?” Bucky asks one evening, his voice floating up from the living room area.

 

“I mean, it could be worse. I could be housing Stark for the night,” you quip, rolling over and making something that might be construed as a tumble to get to the edge of the bed.

 

“I feel like that might have been an insult wrapped in another insult. But that’s not what I meant.”

 

You can only see Bucky’s feet in the soft light of a lamp, peeking out from the covers. He always sleeps with his feet facing the door, always on his back. The only time he hasn’t was the first time when Sam brought him, and something in you feels bad that Bucky can’t relax even in his sleep.

 

“No?”

 

“I meant… this. Living in a small box. Moving around all the time. It’s… Doesn’t it ever get hard? After I got- When I got back, Steve almost had to fight me to move into the Tower. I wanted to go home, you know. To Brooklyn. I don’t know, it was a stupid thought, but I kept thinking if I go back, it’s all still there. The apartment we lived in, the same streets and the same shops and… my family. It felt weird to make another home, but now I don’t know if I could move again.”

 

His voice is soft, a far cry from the persona he’s portrayed as in the media. The Winter Soldier is hard edges and cold steel, but Bucky Barnes… Bucky Barnes is soft, a whisper in the darkness and a longing for something that’s no longer there.

 

“It wasn’t that hard for me, because I needed this. I was out there, in all of that big space with nothing but orders and trusting that someone else knew what we were supposed to do. I’d had a place back in Atlanta before, and I’d packed up all my stuff and rented the place to some college kids. They’d already moved out when I got back, and I thought I was gonna go nuts the first night back. That place had felt like a shoebox before I shipped out and now it was so… big. Had a friend who made these kinds of houses, so he helped me build one pretty much from scratch and my first night here I slept like a baby.”

 

“It’s not that I don’t like it.” God, he sounds almost a bit panicked, like he’s insulted you.

 

“No, I don’t mind. It’s not for everyone. I just feel I have myself better together on less than 300 square feet. I mean, I don’t go from house to house. This is still a home. It’s just a home I can move around with when I need to see new places.”

 

There’s a little huff. “Like the middle of nowhere, New Mexico?”

 

You glance back to the small window next to your bed, at the clouds tinted in burnt orange and vivid pink, the sun setting slowly into the vast horizon. “Yeah. I’ve never been here. I wanted to see it, and now I have.”

 

“You know, that sounds like I’m gonna wake up in the desert tomorrow morning because a bird is trying to steal my covers.”

 

“Don’t flatter yourself, Barnes,” you tease, crawling back to roll yourself into your own covers again. “I wouldn’t leave you with that blanket. It’s my favourite.”

 

“Yeah.” His voice is almost a whisper, but you can still make out his next words: “Mine, too.”

 

When he leaves the next morning, something feels different. He’s tentative at breakfast, burns a few pancakes and once again clips his head on the doorway heading out when Nat touches down the quinjet to pick him up. Breakfast changes hands, Nat fills you in on some gossip. Bucky’s shoulders are slumped when he trudges up and into the cargo hold.

 

“Wait!”

 

You run inside, depositing the bag of breakfast on your counter, grabbing the blanket from the couch and folding it into a mess that would pass exactly zero inspections before heading back out. Nat’s joined Bucky on the quinjet landing, and she quirks and eyebrow when you all but thrust the bunched up fabric into Bucky’s arms.

 

“A bit of home,” you blurt out, immediately feeling heat creep up your cheeks. “Can’t hurt to have more of that.”

 

Bucky chuckles, “No… I guess it can’t.”

 

You move three days later. The New Mexico desert makes you restless, makes you itch for something else. For a couple of weeks, you drift further and further north, looking for a place that doesn’t put you on edge. You plough through the Midwest, but there’s always something. You text Sam just to become annoyed and feel something else. He calls a couple of times, facetimes you on your birthday so the whole gang can wish you happy birthday. You smile, taking a screenshot to save the memory for a rainy day. They’re all there, sitting around an obscenely big dinner table, glasses raised, mouths open mid-sentence. Stark looks magnanimous as always, sunglasses perched on top of his head, Steve’s got an expression that’s somewhere between his Captain America-smile and a genuine Steve Rogers-grin. Bucky… Bucky is not there. Or at least you can’t see him. Maybe he’s at the very end of the table, obscured by the others. Not that you care. You don’t. You absolutely don’t. You definitely don’t look for him in the picture every time you bring it up.

 

You move again. It’s too calm. You’ve had no superheroes visiting in two months, no late night calls inquiring about coordinates. Stark’s laptop is shoved into a drawer where you can’t see it, there’s a new blanket draped over your couch pretending it’s always been there.

 

_ >>Coordinates? _

 

The text from the unknown number comes in late one evening when you’re gearing up to let bygones be bygones and forget the Midwest ever existed. You could cry with how happy it makes you, even though a text means one or more of them is in trouble and maybe you should be a little worried, too. The Avengers are good people, but they’re not unlike cats, dragging others with them. Like murder bots and weird aliens. You dutifully send your coordinates, biting your lip before adding:

 

_ >>Don’t wake me, and don’t make me wake up to bad guys on my porch _

 

_ >>They scare the neighbours _

 

_ >>I have a reputation to think of _

 

Your only neighbours are trees, but still. No one likes bad guys.

 

Setting your phone down, you tuck yourself into bed. Whoever’s coming knows where to find the key to get in. Stark, again, wanted to set you up with some biometric doohickey that would make it impossible for anyone not in the system to get in, since “keys are so unreliable, look at Parker, he could probably pick it after five minutes on Youtube”. He stopped talking when you pointed out your house is a glorified box on wheels, and that there are far easier ways to get in than to pick the lock or even rush the door. You’d had to tell him he was not allowed to turn your house into a tank.

 

When the sun rises, waking you up with a well-placed ray right in your eyes, you expect to hear… something. Sam, Nat and Steve are all early wakers, there would be the telltale sounds and scents of breakfast being prepared. Tony, much as he tries to vehemently deny it, snores. God, is it Barton? You raise your head, and let out a sigh of relief to see the loft empty save for yourself and the sparse furnishings. Could still be Barton, he’s just learned to stay out of your nest and accept that he’s not top of the pecking order here.

 

But when you get down from your loft, there’s no one there. Blinking, you look around, as if whoever texted you last night will jump out from some impossible corner. The couch is untouched, everything is where you left it. Was it Bruce and he couldn’t de-Hulk so he slept outside? You check your phone to see if there are any unread text or missed calls, but there’s nothing.

 

_ >>Did you leave already? _

 

The reply comes within seconds.

 

_ >>No. Outside. _

 

So… Bruce? Furrowing your brow, you go pull a pair of sweats from the hamper, yawning wide before you head for the door. You’re not exactly sure what to expect, but finding the clearing you’ve set up camp in empty is… anticlimactic, to say the least.

 

“Hello?” you call out, stepping down the stairs, a shiver running down your spine from the cool morning air.

 

Nothing. The wind sighs in the tops of the trees, a crack from a branch breaking the calm. Ahead of you, something catches your eye, far too colourful to be part of the wooded area.

 

“What the hell?”

 

Folded neatly on the ground is your blanket, your _old_ blanket, the one you gave to-

 

“Sam told me you’d been moving around a lot. Figured maybe you could need a bit more home.”

 

You yelp and whirl around to find Bucky sitting on the stairs, filling up the doorway and smiling smugly at you.

 

“How-” You look at him, then around at the clearing and back to Bucky, pointing at him. “You- What?”

 

“Sorry, I… thought it would be fun. It was creepy, wasn’t it?” He scratches the back of his head, getting of the stairs, approaching you slowly. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

 

“Are you okay?” It’s second nature by now to give him a once-over, to expect bruises and scrapes and, let’s be honest, blood. Seeing nothing doesn’t necessarily mean he’s okay. These yahoos are notorious about playing off little things like internal bleedings, cracked ribs and concussions.

 

“What, no! I mean, yes, yes, I’m okay. I wasn’t in any scuffle. Haven’t been for a while. You can check me if you like.”

 

Pursing your lips, you look him up and down while you circle him, prodding at his ribs, his hands, his cheekbone. Satisfied that he’s not injured, you come to a stop in front of him.

 

“Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you again, but… why are you here?”

 

“Been travelling. Sort of like this, but without the… tiny house, was it? I thought about what you said, about home and all that, and I realized that maybe I need to reevaluate what home means. Going away to figure out what I miss and what I need.”

 

He raises his right hand to drag the fingertips along the soft blanket, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. It sounds cheesy as all hell, but your heart skips a beat, your breath catching in your throat, because he looks so content, so relaxed.

 

“Yeah? Did you find the answer then? What’s home?” you ask, cursing your voice for sounding breathier than you ever intended it to.

 

“See, I packed light. Couple changes of clothes, toothbrush, the regular stuff… and this.” He takes a firm hold of the blanket with both hands, pulling it from you, shaking it out. “And I missed a lot of things in the beginning. People… things… comforts. But I learned to make do without all of those. Only thing I couldn’t get past missin’...”

 

You watch wide eyed as Bucky wraps the blanket over your shoulders, tugging at the ends to bring it in tightly over your chest, cocooning you in it.

 

“...is in this blanket,” he finishes, his gaze focused on where his hands holds it close. “I missed mornings with you. Even the first morning when I woke up feelin’ like a drunk sailor after pub crawl, thinking Stark or someone had shrunk me down to the size of a bean. I missed your tiny house and your couch and your coffee and… and you.”

 

_And you._

 

Maybe it’s another cliché, but you can’t help the smile, the sudden joy that bubbles up along with the sensation of _right_. All these days that have somehow bled into months of moving, of unease, they are drawn into this moment. They breathe a sigh of relief, settling. This is it, this is what all that drifting was about. Finding the spot where your roads would lead you to stand toe to toe, wrapped in a well-worn blanket and realize that home can grow from a warmth that accumulated over so many mornings. You push at Bucky’s hands, making the blanket part, tugging the ends from his grip to sling your arms around his neck, bringing him into it.

 

The kisses don’t happen until later. First, there’s the quiet, the seconds and minutes wrapped in the blanket. Then, there is breakfast and coffee strong enough to make a spoon stand up straight and slightly overscrambled eggs and Bucky’s voice drifting from the bathroom with hums breaking up the lyrics. You kiss him like you want to taste him, commit him to memory, pulling him down by his neck and drawing in a sharp breath when drops of water fall down the neckline of your t-shirt. He kisses like he’s finally at rest, safe even when his attention is diverted.

 

_ >>Coordinates? Bit banged up, wings took a hit, out of your hair before tomorrow _

 

_ >>image.jpeg _

_ >>Sorry, find another safehouse, this one’s occupied _

 

_ >>TMI WAY TMI DO NOT SAY ANOTHER WORD _

 

_ >>It was just a selfie! _

 

_ >>IN BED _

 

_ >>Get ur head out of the gutter /JBB _

 

_ >>I hate you guys _

 

You smile at the final message, setting down the phone and curling up against Bucky with a sigh. The sheets are a mess by your feet, Bucky’s body heat enough to keep you both warm.

“Occupied, huh?” he smiles, tracing your lower lip with the pad of his thumb.

 

You nod, pressing a kiss to the finger.

 

“Welcome home.”

 


End file.
